A week before Pentecost, a mixed fleet set off from Hastings with the protection of the night, crossed half of the English Channel (France: Lamanche Strait), and ambushed on the Isle of Wight, preparing to ambush a large merchant fleet from Gibraltar.

Gibraltar is a Spanish genus. Because the Spanish Minister of Navy Pattinho even agreed that Charles, the second son of King Louis XIV of the Sun, was the Spanish King Carlos III, so this place under his confidant could not be regarded as a battlefield or an enemy-occupied area for the time being. The merchants continued their business in this city that strangled the throats of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

This caravan once belonged to the Great Parliament of the Netherlands. According to the spies placed among them, this fleet of at least thirty-five Calais ships was full of gold, indigo and coffee beans, with a total value of more than 15,000 livres and even more. Although one-third of the ships were only armed, although this number of armed merchant ships would make ordinary pirates afraid, they could not let hunters named army but actually thieves abandon this rich prey.

The reason why it is called a hybrid fleet is that this fleet not only has three forces in terms of ship type, tonnage and crew, but even their owners are three completely different people - they are pirate Gott, British naval captain Cunningham, and Van Basten, the Dutch exile government.

Although Captain Cunningham, as a British jazz and general, became the real leader for granted, both Van Basten and Gott could only be said to be his deputy, but when they gathered for a meeting at his "Charles I", Cunningham was still involuntarily worried and uneasy.

The three of them sat at the table. The servant brought whiskey and rum, turned the switch of the kerosene lamp, and made the entire cabin bright as day. Van Basten subconsciously took out his pocket watch and looked at it. It was three o'clock in the middle of the night, and it was as dark as ink outside. Their discussion might not last long. After all, in the plan, they were going to attack at dawn and when the sea was filled with mist, Captain Cunningham summoned them here, probably because he didn't want the previous thing to happen again. When they were plundering a caravan, they didn't know whether it was accidental or intentional. Gott's artillery hit the mast of the ship where Van Basten was.

They almost fought directly and almost let the merchant ship go. If Cunningham had not commanded the ship to chase him to the end...the punishment for Cunningham - mainly in terms of spoils, these two had nothing to complain about, but when they saw Cunningham, they knew that the matter was not over.

It is just a silence to say that during the reign of Charles I, Dutch merchant ships were still British pirates, and they could also be said to be prey of the official privateer. Their hatreds were intertwined for hundreds of years. Although they have a common enemy, it is impossible to expect them to love immediately. "But think about it, two," Cunningham said, "This is gold, spice and indigo!" He said in a stressful tone: "Even for these 5,000 Rifters, at least today, you should be a pair of good friends who can fight side by side without distraction... Think about it, think about it, this is a lot of money! Enough for you to buy a big three-masted ship or three single windsurfings! Or ten small cannons, or anything you want... As long as everything goes well, gentlemen, as long as everything goes well..."

He looked at the two, as if waiting for their ecstatic response.

But after hearing this, the pirate Gott glanced at Cunningham. Although his skin was dark, Cunningham knew it was different from them at first glance - he was a naval officer and a lord, and he always had an assumption of indescribable attitude in his manner, but when he listened carefully, he could hear a bit of familiarity.

The pirates grinned, even though the British Navy had never let the hangbacks of the docks and ports be empty, who wouldn't know that the British Navy, since the establishment of Henry VII in 1500, was first recruited from pirates and sailors - even with the abundant domestic coal resources and black iron from India, they now look like a behemoth, but the nutrients absorbed by this forest tree are not clean, and even the branches that stretch out are black and bloody.

You don't even need to trace it back too long. Francis Derek during the Elizabeth I period was a famous pirate. At that time, in order to compete with Spain for the position of maritime overlords, Her Majesty the Queen not only did not punish such a criminal, but also granted him a title and issued the so-called "license" to him and some of his colleagues, which is what people call privateer licenses. With this document, British pirates can plunder British enemy ships under the protection of the British Navy and even calmly under the protection of the British Navy, and use their flesh and blood to nourish the last king of the Tudor dynasty and the kings of Stuart.

This kind of transaction has continued to this day. According to the earliest contract, pirates who obtained a privateer license not only had to hand over the spoils to the British government to sell stolen goods, but also had to serve the British Navy when the British went to war.

There are some smart people like Drake who can see the right opportunity to climb up and transform their descendants from pirates who should have been hanged ten thousand times into respectable lords. Mr. Cunningham is probably a family-leading source. When he thinks of this, Gott couldn't help laughing, but unlike other pirates, he had no envy in his heart. Some people were willing to be a barking hunting dog, and of course some were willing to be a beast running in the wind and rain.

Gott's smile made Mr. Van Basten raise his head. He looked cold as ever. When he talked about his origin, his identity might be more expensive than Cunningham, but he never mentioned it. When Captain Cunningham occasionally mentioned it, he admitted that when his homeland fell into the hands of the enemy, a prominent surname brought not glory but shame, so he had abandoned his original surname and only let people call him his church name.

According to age, Van Basten is the oldest of these three, but both Cunningham and Gott seem to be much older than him. Gott kept thinking in his mind that perhaps Mr. Van Basten had not experienced much storm at sea, but Van Basten quickly proved to him that sometimes talent is better than experience. The problem is that, in addition to the unhappiness in tactics and prejudices, Gott was also strongly opposed to the crew and the atrocities against the captives. Compared to Cunningham's indifferentness, Gott often treated the ship.

The officer used the "Nine-tailed Cat" (a whip that was scattered into nine strands of cowhide whip) or "hanging the dragon bone" (hanging the inmate under the dragon bone, allowing the parasitic shells such as oysters attached to the dragon bone to cut them into blood), and let the prisoners "go on the springboard" and "duels" on the mast, which made Van Basten unable to bear it - he could accept killing the enemy during the battle, or letting the prisoners or those who fell into the water fend for themselves, but he felt that this unreasonable abuse would only make people despise them.

Of course Gott couldn't see a hypocritical hypocrite like Van Basten, let alone when they were acting together, Van Basten also put his thoughts and words into action. He interfered in the matter on Gott's ship, which made the pirate captain furious, because this behavior undoubtedly shakes his authority on the ship.

Anyone who has read novels related to pirates and movies should know what fate will a pirate captain face if he loses the awe of his crew.

So, in a subsequent operation, Gott personally interrupted the mast of the ship where Van Buster was located.

When he noticed Van Basten looking at him, Gott's smile deepened and brought a bit of provocation. Van Basten turned his head and said, "Is there any update?"

Cunningham frowned, and then spread out in his sigh, "Pour wine for both gentlemen!" he shouted, and when Gott's rum and Van Basten's wine were in place, he nodded: "Yes, gentlemen, they are going around Cape Finister and coming to us."

"Where is the Dunkirk navy?"

"They are still confronting Dover's navy."

"There are two more fleets stranded in Sicily and Barcelona," Cunningham said. "We don't need to worry about the French navy for the time being."

"And we have ironclad ships, too." Gott threw a charming look at Cunningham: "Treat our captain!"

"To everyone, to 15,000 Rifts!" Cunningham said, and he raised his cup, touched the two of them, and drank it all. They laid a thin sheepskin chart on the table, and then roughly distinguished their respective responsibilities with a small magnet boat. As mentioned before, the fleet not only had three heads, but also had very different bodies.

The British naval fleet has always used firepower as the criterion. This idea cannot be said to be wrong, because it has been continued until hundreds of years later, and Charles I lost his crown and head. It had 102 artillery guns, which was the best in the world at that time. Later, when Charles II saw the iron-clad fleet built by Louis XIV, he did not hesitate to repeat his father's previous mistakes, and almost militarily wanted to build such a fleet that seemed to be covered in armor.

We are grateful that Charles II has made many dangerous changes in order to eliminate the power of the former Duke of the Nation, Cromwell, and weaken the constraining of the parliament on the king. This change certainly made him an unquestionable tyrant, but also did not disturb his reforms to the navy and ships. Especially in the naval battle in Dunkirk, the British Navy's obvious backwardness on the ships also gained a lot of supporters.

Opponents of the change may also be worried that Charles II's rights would further increase, to the point of becoming like the French King Louis XIV - France is now a completely alone country, with parliament and the high courts being useless, but when the British "private" fleet kept bringing back rich spoils, they had to keep silent in the cheers of civilians.

Anyway, this is what this era is like. No matter how cruel or harsh a king is, as long as he can bring victory, he is a good king.

The ironclad ships Gott mentioned are the four ironclad ships brought by Cunningham. Although they cannot be compared with the "Sea King" or the wonder ships like France's "Rule King", they can also be called behemoths. In other words, the first-class battleships with a length of more than 60 meters are loaded with more artillery than the original "Sea King".

These ironclad ships are undoubtedly the main battleships in this mixed fleet. In comparison, the fleet of pirate Gott's fleet pales in comparison. Although Gott's flagship "Good Luck" is already a beautiful three-masted ship, it is still a wooden galleon, not an ironclad ship, and it carries only forty artillery pieces. However, Gott and his crew also have four double-brid armed clutches, three schooners and sailboats, as well as seven or eight light sloops and flute ships - these ships are generally used to carry stolen goods obtained from the robbery.

All the ships of the Dutchman Van Basten were located between the two. Although they were unable to build ironclad ships, as once known as the sea coachman, they took away the crown of Spain's maritime overlord and surpassed the Dutch fleet that had almost lost all in the last battle, they still tried to reorganize a fleet. Almost all of them were based on the "Seven Provinces", with a length of about forty to fifty meters. They were sailing warships, but they were lighter and more flexible than the British ironclad ships, and each ship had a number of artillery of about seventy to eighty guns.

There are seven such ships in total.

All ships in this mixed fleet have combined more than thirty ships. This number is enough to destroy a merchant fleet that is only escorted by armed merchant ships. Moreover, there are four iron armored ships. Gott has seen how invincible it is and it is difficult to fight against it during this period. Sometimes it only appears at sea level, and the caravan's lookouts will look desperate - because the artillery of this armed merchant ship cannot penetrate the iron armor.

After they roughly determined the formation, offensive order and the signal of agreement, Cunningham raised his glass again and sincerely asked the two companions to temporarily put down their hatred and fight against their enemies together, or hunt down their targets. He even made a private promise to Gott and Van Basten that if the operation went smoothly, he might be able to express his grievances to the Navy Minister and allow them to customize an ironclad ship.
Chapter completed!